Mitchell Jones, PhD student, University of Maine As a scientist in a family of some non-scientists I often find myself defending what I do for a living. At Thanksgiving and Christmas my cousins and in-laws always talk about what they’ve been doing at work. They’re from big cities—Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia—and work [...]
Tess Howard, Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Maine Jared Homola, PhD student, University of Maine Why is it so important to protect vernal pools? Why are they important ecosystem features? Why are they important to our project? In this article, we hope to shed some light on these important questions. [...]
Dana Bauer, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environment, Boston University Many places have small natural features that are far more important for maintaining biodiversity or providing ecosystem services than their size would indicate. While the “Of Pools and People” research project is focused on conservation and management of vernal pools in landscapes under [...]
By Diane Dunham, Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Maine and Carly Eakin, Graduate Researcher, University of Maine Have you ever considered how a tadpole becomes a frog? It is a truly remarkable process which generates a “finished product” that looks and behaves much differently than the larvae that hatched from [...]
Kristine Hoffmann, PHD Student, University of Maine After three years of collecting data on blue-spotted salamanders, this Saturday I celebrated the removal of drift fences from around four local vernal pools. I was aided by 9 enthusiastic volunteers from the Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society, despite the mud and the promise [...]
